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Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) launched on Tuesday a series of new search features that let users integrate options for displaying and analyzing their search results beyond the traditional listing of keyword hits ranked by assumed relevance.
The new services are part of a platform of additional features Google is developing and will make live in the future, though it offered no set timetable. The innovations announced at Google's Searchology event are the Search Options Panel, the Wonder Wheel, Rich Snippets and Google Squared.
Google announced its new search features around the same time news emerged that another search engine, Wolfram|Alpha, would go public in a matter of days. Wolfram|Alpha, by Wolfram Research, is a new search service that attempts to bring a measure of artificial intelligence to traditional Internet searching.
"'Artificial intelligence' is a loaded term," Nundu Janakiram, product manager at Google, told TechNewsWorld. "It means a lot of different things to different people. We think of it in terms of trying to understand the Web and users' needs in whatever form it takes."
New Features
Although Google announced a series of enhancements, only two of the promised new features -- the Search Options Panel and the Wonder Wheel -- are available now. Rich Snippets, a content-tagging function for webmasters, is not a feature consumers can readily use. Google Squared, another data display option, will go live later this month, according to Janakiram.
The Search Options Panel is a way for users to refine, filter and review the results in a variety of different ways on the same search page. It is accessible by clicking the Show Options link at the top of the standard search results list.
Google Squared displays search content in a spreadsheet-like format. It will be accessible from the Google Labs page. Its status as a lab feature makes it more of a trial tool until the kinks are worked out.
Google Philosophy
"The common theme with these new search tools is trying to get our users to do more with searches," said Janakiram. "What's really cool is that the core search experience doesn't change. Users still get the same list of results. Now they can slice and dice the results in more meaningful ways to them."
For instance, a user may only want to see information on a search topic found in a discussion forum, or videos or reviews. Another option within lets users bring in images and look at them next to a text display, he explained.
Google's key message in introducing new features is that both Google and its users are able to experiment with new options and new forms of visualization, said Janakiram.
"Users are getting more sophisticated and the Web is getting more complex," he observed. "There [are] often things you want to search for but can't do with simple keywords. So the search options panel is the next step."
More Details
Google will use the search panel as the landing zone for upcoming new features. It will be a living area for new features, according to Janakiram.
One of the options in the search results panel is the Recent Developments feature. Google developed a new algorithm to show both the timeliness and the relevancy of the results of a given search, he said.
The Wonder Wheel resulted from a Google engineer who wondered what it would be like to turn search results into a pie chart. Key words from the standard results list fan out in a circular chart. Users can click on different links in the chart to expand the search results and visualize data in a new way.
When the Google Squared feature is available, users will see the search results fill up rows and columns automatically in a spreadsheet display. Users can work with the data much as they can manipulate data entered into spreadsheet cells. The data can then be saved to the user's Google account for later use.
"The Generalized Abstraction Model is a really cool piece of technology [in Google Squared]. You can add rows and add columns and fix data points that may be incorrect and see the sources they are coming from," Janakiram explained.
Tag, You're It
The Rich Snippets feature allows webmasters tag up their sites with metadata that explains what the content is. Because Google is supporting open standards, webmasters who place tags on their sites will be able to have them interpreted regardless of the crawlers used, according to Janakiram.
"We really feel that this will make the Internet better in the long term," he said.
With the Web's ever-growing complexity and users' more-complicated questions, the challenge for Google is how to fulfill user needs in a simple way, noted Janakiram.
Industry Benefit
Some, if not all, of Google's enhancements could be replicated by other search companies. These new options do not change the data that users receive from their keyword search. They simply give the user more ways to view the information. User experience changes such as these should be relatively easy for a major search player, according to Jim Anderson, CTO of Saber Seven.
"The enhancements are good for the industry overall, because they serve to give the user a broader view of the information they're looking for and allow the user to more easily filter that information," Anderson told TechNewsWorld. "However, the question remains: Will users adopt these new services, given they're already trained to search within their searches until they find the correct information?"
Semantics will remain a vital key to search enhancements. Search engine developers also need to understand the user's question. This is where semantics really come into play, Anderson pointed out. Saber Seven is developing a solution that brings the answers to the user and refines the process with all these techniques integrated into the experience.
Control Factors
Search engine users typically have two focuses: They either discover the topic or the specific data. Google's changes make it easier for users to filter through the search results to truly find what they are looking for from a type-of-data standpoint. However, users still need to use accurate search terms, cautioned Anderson.
"Google is well-known as an innovator and a leader in keyword search, and giving users more control over how to view and filter information will certainly create a more engaging experience," he said. "However, across the industry, how people consume information from a search is changing, and Google's changes are a natural reflection of this."
It remains to be seen whether these changes will improve the quality of
the information and reduce the time a user spends on search. Without
semantics and human understanding, noted Anderson, the results are not yet truly valuable.
